


Rise of the Roaches

by chucks_prophet



Category: Supernatural
Genre: Alternate Universe - Neighbors, Alternate Universe - Roommates/Housemates, Benny Lafitte & Dean Winchester Friendship, Bugs & Insects, But to Be Expected Because I Lived This, Cockroaches, Dean and Benny are Roommates, Fluff and Humor, Humor, Lots of Cursing, M/M, Neighbor Castiel, Neighbors, Pet Owner Castiel, Roommates
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-14
Updated: 2017-09-14
Packaged: 2018-12-29 17:37:57
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,070
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12090015
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/chucks_prophet/pseuds/chucks_prophet
Summary: "There!"Without hesitation, Dean swings the boot like a Louisville Slugger. Being so thin, the wall vibrates, but Dean doesn’t move once the leather’s in contact with it. Between the greasy sole of the shoe and the wall should be the corpse of a sewer roach. Dean rocks the boot back and forth—just to be sure. But before he pulls away, the bug bolts. "Agh, that scrappy son of a bitch! Did you see that?! It was rubbing its front legs together like it was plotting to take over the goddamn apartment."





	Rise of the Roaches

**Author's Note:**

> Based on the very real and terrifying events that transpired in my best friend's apartment last year. Roaches. Roaches everywhere. T'was I, the roach killer, and Eve, the funeral coordinator, that came out victorious.

"I don't get why you can't kill 'em."

"That's too cruel,” Benny replies, glancing over to the boot Dean’s white-knuckling. “Would you wanna be cremated if ya weren't more than a coupla inches long?"

"If I was a dirty, ugly son of a bitch that was eating everything that costs half the rent—happily."

"There!"

Without hesitation, Dean swings the boot like a Louisville Slugger. Being so thin, the wall vibrates, but Dean doesn’t move once the leather’s in contact with it. Between the greasy sole of the shoe and the wall should be the corpse of a sewer roach. Dean rocks the boot back and forth—just to be sure. But before he pulls away, the bug bolts. "Agh, that scrappy son of a bitch! Did you see that?! It was rubbing its front legs together like it was plotting to take over the goddamn apartment."

"We _are_ outnumbered,” Benny points out, moving to flop down against the wall, and he’s not wrong. It’s roach territory now. All of it is. If Dean didn’t have an inspection tomorrow at work, he’d be camping outside. If anything, _Dean_ should be the only one with privilege to crawl his walls.

"I can't believe this,” he scoffs, doing the same and knocking his head against the wall. “We're grown ass fucking men and we can't outsmart roaches."

"To be fair, these things survived the dinosaurs."

Dean rolls his head to Benny with a glare.

“What?”

"Whose side are you on anyway?!"

Benny shrugs. That’s the problem, Dean can be pretty intimidating to anyone under six-foot, but he’s known Benny since he owned that beat-up camper parked outside the restaurant. Dean knows nothing can melt those glaciers for eyes, except when his ten-year-old niece Liz is involved.

"You know this is probably an infestation,” he adds.

"What can we do?" Benny asks. "We can't move. We can barely afford paper towels to give those buggas a proper farewell."

"Fuck these smug ass kings of the sewer!” Dean rages. “I'll leave 'em on the wall like a mount! Show all the other roaches who they're messing with."

"Only you’d do that 'cos you're too afraid to pick 'em up."

"It's a very real fear to think they might jump out at you. Have you seen the bee scene in Case 39?"

A knock on the door causes them to look at each other in question (and pee a little on Dean’s side, because for all he knows, a life-sized roach is at the door to _Planet of the Ape_ their apartment).

“Maybe it's Bradley Cooper,” Benny mocks.

Dean rolls his eyes, but keeps them narrow as he approaches the door. Giant roach or not, it’s seven at night, so the suspicion is real.

When he turns and pulls back the knob, he’s surprised to see a guy in his mid-twenties with dark, messy hair, dark blue eyes and a hard jawline adorned with stubble ornaments. He’s wearing a green shirt, red hoodie, and jeans—the latter of which forces Dean’s gaze back to the man’s _face_ because of the way they hug his thick thighs. (Too bad his mouth’s already hanging open.)

"Hi, um, my name’s Cas. Dean, right? And Benny. I think we’ve met before, I live next door, I'm asking around, seeing if anyone’s seen my toad. He escaped this morning.”

Of course his voice is raspy. Why wouldn’t it be? Aphrodite has to have her way with Dean somehow. "Uh... Benny, have we seen a toad?" he calls.

“The Wet Sprocket?”

“Yes, the Wet Sprocket— _no,_ you fucking moron, an actual toad!”

“No, not that I—oh.”

Dean swivels around to find none other than a toad hopping down from the top shelf of the entertainment center. It stares straight ahead, oblivious to the two men in the home, before snapping its tongue like a whip against the wall, successfully snatching a roach.

Dean throws his head back. Well, that’s a handy pet. "Come on in."

Cas steps inside shyly. Dean steals a glance from behind and notices how meaty his ass is too. Funny, he hasn’t even kissed the toad yet. "So, this is your toad. And you feed him…?"

"Cockroaches, usually,” Cas replies, scooping the amphibian into his tanned, slender hands. “And this is where all my food supply went."

Dean follows Cas’s gaze on the wall to three more roaches. "Shit!"

"I'm so sorry,” Cas says, “I always make sure to keep the seal tight so they don't come out."

"Well, these things survived the dinosaurs, you know,” Dean says with a wink.

Benny moves quick from the wall at the sight of the roaches, but takes his time glaring at Dean.

Cas grins. "I do, actually. I'm a Biology major."

"Ah, that explains the exotic taste in pets."

"They actually help with my anxiety too."

"The toads, right? Not the roaches."

Cas laughs, affirming, "Definitely not the roaches. No, um, toads, they get anxious too, due to their predators in the wild, like snakes and hawks and… I’m sorry.”

Dean shakes his head, confused. “Why?”

“I tend to forget that people aren’t as passionate as I am about animals,” Cas replies, laughing more nervously as he strokes the back of his restless toad. “Even Clarence is starting to get fidgety.”

Dean, however, laughs at the sheer ridiculousness of it, “You’re good, Cas. So, frog anxiety?”

Cas’s mouth parts into a small smile that stretches his large, flat lips. “Right. So one thing they can’t really do on their own is flip onto their back, which is what calms them down. It's pretty neat to watch. It even calms me down in a weird way.”

"Well, I’ll tell you what, your toad is welcome here anytime. Especially when it's feeding time."

Cas chuckles and scratches the back of his neck, "I really am sorry, I'll try to be more careful with the roaches. If you want, I can go back to my place and get some sweets to lure them in. Roaches love sweet things."

"That's why they go for my crepes!" Benny exclaims. Both Dean and Cas turn to him—Cas definitely more amused than Dean. Benny catches his best friend’s expression and says, “I, um… I’ll jus’…” And with that, Benny escorts himself from the living room.

“So,” Dean says, gesturing for Cas to sit across from him at the table, “tell me more about toads.”

 


End file.
